Most people think that a flat pack, DIY kitchen is for small kitchens, cottages and holiday homes. But the fact is that at Kitchen Shack, most of our sales are for mid-to-large sized kitchens. Contrary to popular perception – it is not about size. It is about how much time and effort you are willing to invest in the project. If you are willing to invest the time, you can get a more budget-friendly kitchen that will save you thousands of dollars compared to a custom kitchen while having the same product. The savings can then be used to pay for what’s really important to you and the potential buyer of your property.
There’s one unmistakable trend in the Melbourne housing market that’s a reflection on our lifestyle. The kitchen has moved centre stage and there are high expectations of quality, design, finish and storage. In a home renovation, especially if you are looking to sell, buyers expect a lot from a kitchen.
One way to deliver on these expectations is to do a DIY kitchen. If you are inclined to self-designing and managing the project, DIY kitchens like ours come fully assembled. It comes with the option of hiring our tradesmen for important tasks like plumbing, electrical work and installation. What you save can be used for better appliances or simply to improve your profit.
Having said that, to get a great outcome on a DIY kitchen requires good planning and execution. And we can’t stress on this enough. Here’s your roadmap.
1. Making a budget:
Take a good, hard look at the existing kitchen space and ask yourself the following questions:
- What’s the value of the house and how much do you want to spend on the kitchen? Unless you plan to live in the house for many years, you don’t want to overcapitalise.
- Are you only replacing the current dated kitchen with a new kitchen? Same size and space? Or will you be changing the location/orientation? The answer has significant implication for costs.
- Are you happy to keep the fridge, cooktop and sink where they are in the new layout? If yes, you can avoid expensive relocation of electrical, gas and water connections.
- Make a list of appliances you want, research the size and price. For instance, decide now if you’d like a standalone cooktop/oven or a built-in cooktop with wall ovens. Oversized models or a standard 90mm width?
- Would you need to put in new flooring, lighting etc.? Also, list other expenses like repainting, levelling etc.
2. Designing a layout:
This is where you put on your project manager’s hat.
- There are many tools that can help you measure and design a kitchen layout. You can download our design guide, which has complete know-how and tools with which you can design a layout for your kitchen.
- Measure as accurately as you can by using our guide, but remember that once you place your order, we can do a check measure on-site.
3. Choosing a kitchen:
This is the most creative step of a DIY kitchen. You probably know exactly what you want – the colour, style and finish. At this stage, we highly recommend that you visit showrooms and see a few kitchens. You’ll get to see and feel the new products and you can start to refine your final choices.
- Research good interiors magazines and blogs and save photos of the style you are looking for.
- Put together a colour board.
- Choose your materials – for the benchtops (reconstituted stone, laminate etc.) cabinetry (e.g. high-gloss, mat finish)
- Then bring your measured layout and style into our showroom for your free appointment, the in-store designer will then design it and give you a quote on the spot.
Having saved on the project management cost, you won’t need to make any compromise on the quality of the kitchen. Our customers have built some amazing mid-size kitchens for as low as $10,000. At the Cabinet Manufacturers and Designers Association Awards Night, 2017, one of our kitchens was a finalist in the under $15,000 category. Here it is. A family kitchen that met the brief with top quality styling and finish.
You too can have the same custom design and built budget kitchen for 1000’s of dollars less. That’s the reward of a DIY kitchen.
